Spam is undesirable for many reasons. Spam messages may be carriers of viruses (e.g. worms, Trojan horses, etc.) that may damage application software or the operating system, reduce system performance, or compromise user privacy by surreptitiously capturing personal information or tracking and reporting usage habits. As well, in certain operating environments, such as a wireless communications network, spam messages forwarded to a mobile communications device may incur significant network usage charges (e.g. based on bandwidth usage, elapsed time, or message count), or roaming charges (i.e. when the communications device is being used on a wireless network other than that of the local service provider).
Even with the introduction and widespread use of various techniques for filtering spam, with the seemingly ever-increasing volume of spam messages, managing spam messages on mobile communications devices can be a laborious and time-consuming task for users of those devices. Spam messages received at mobile communications devices may also consume limited and valuable resources on the device. Thus, what is needed is a more effective system and method of managing spam, especially in a wireless operating environment.